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Do food cues trigger actions more in obese than healthy-weight people?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Obese individuals are biased toward actions that earn high-calorie foods when triggered by cues, whereas healthy-weight individuals respond similarly to both high- and low-calorie cues.
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Do food cues trigger actions more in obese than healthy-weight people?
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19 obese individuals
To investigate the clinical relevance of this mechanism, we used a computerized Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer task and compared performance of 19 severely obese individuals to that of 19 healthy-weight controls matched for age, education and gender.
19 participants
After exclusions, 19 obese participants remained, of whom four had previously been diagnosed with depression and were taking SSRIs.
Key findings
Obese participants showed stronger priming effects for high-calorie foods compared to low-calorie foods, while healthy-weight controls showed no difference between food types. However, both groups performed similarly when trying to stop responding for foods that were no longer valuable.
Methodology
To study cue-triggered eating, researchers compared 19 obese individuals with 19 healthy-weight controls. Participants learned to press keys to get pictures of high-calorie foods or low-calorie foods. They also associated abstract logos with these foods, and researchers then measured how much these logos and food pictures biased their keyboard responses.
Limitations
This research cannot prove that high sensitivity to food cues directly causes obesity, as it is a cross-sectional study. Additionally, the sample was small, consisting of 19 participants in each group, and did not include obese individuals with binge eating disorder. Finally, testing locations differed slightly because some healthy controls were tested at home while patients were tested in a hospital.
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